What contributes to wellbeing gains – proficiency or duration of meditation related practices?

Abstract

Several studies have shown physical and mental health benefits associated with different schools of meditation. However, reviews have recommended interpretation of study outcomes in the context of school specific traditional practices. In the literature, practice proficiency is often conflated with hours or years of meditation practice and it is difficult to attribute wellbeing gains directly to the proficiency of practice. We carried out two studies to examine wellbeing, practice proficiency, and duration of practice amongst Brahma Kumaris Rajayoga (BKRY) practitioners from India. In Study 1, we surveyed participants (n = 1009) to record the socio-demographics, spiritual lifestyle components, and wellbeing enhancement attributed to their spiritual practice. We developed new measures for evaluating proficiency of BKRY practice and for assessment of progress in wellbeing attributed to BKRY practice. Both measures had high internal consistency scores (alphas 0.95, 0.93). Block-wise hierarchical linear regression analysis showed that after accounting for demographic variables, BKRY practice proficiency strongly predicted progress in wellbeing, explaining over 51.6% of the total variance. In Study 2, we took three well-matched groups (n = 86) that were distinct on the basis of duration of practice (long term, short term and zero term). We examined wellbeing differences in these three groups and the extent of correlation of wellbeing with practice proficiency, progress in wellbeing and duration of practice. We conclude that meditation practice does improve wellbeing and that proficiency of practice is better correlated with most aspects of wellbeing than duration of practice but there are a few aspects of wellbeing that increase with sustained practice over a long time. We recommend that studies involving other schools of spiritual/religious practice incorporate tradition-specific proficiency assessment (instead of using years of practice as a proxy) and also use the Progress in Wellbeing scale for assessing practiceaided improvements in wellbeing.

Differences in brain connectivity of meditators during assessing neurocognition via gamified experimental logic task: A machine learning approach

“…In line with our study goals, we recruited only two groups of participants well-delineated by years of meditation practice. A future study recruiting a larger sample of participants across a wide range of years of meditation practice and proficiency, 6 will enable regression-based machine learning analyses to predict meditation proficiency based on brain functional connectivity.…”

“…The STP group had six months to two years of meditation practice and a median meditation experience of 1095 h (range 274–2190). Both groups were proficient in meditation, 6 the primary difference being the duration of practice. People from all age groups and diverse socio-economic conditions practice meditation.…”

“…A study conducted to examine well-being revealed that proficiency in practice was well correlated with well-being than the duration of practice. 6 The term well-being refers to a good quality of life across various dimensions like subjective and psychological well-being and meaning and quality of life. So, proficiency can be achieved even with a few years of meditation practice.…”

Classification of Rajayoga Meditators Based on the Duration of Practice Using Graph Theoretical Measures of Functional Connectivity from Task-Based Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

“…The STP group had 6 months–2 years of meditation practice and a median meditation experience of 1,095 h (range: 274 to 2,190). Both groups were proficient in meditation,[ 15 ] the primary difference being the duration of practice. People from all age groups and diverse socioeconomic conditions practice meditation.…”

“…A previous study among Brahma Kumaris Rajayoga meditators showed that both short-term and long-term meditators have enhanced well-being as compared to nonmeditators and that proficiency in meditation is a stronger predictor of progress in well-being than the duration of meditation practice. [ 15 ] Intriguingly, another study with the same group of meditators found that long-term meditators demonstrated mental mastery by being able to rapidly switch between rest and meditation states (as evidenced by electroencephalogram [EEG] changes) on demand, and under a variety of test conditions whereas short-term meditators were able to shift states when given about 15 min and only with their eyes closed. [ 16 ] In another study, to test the hypothesis that the duration of meditation practice might bring about changes in brain functional networks, it was checked if meditators could be reliably classified into distinct groups based on differences in brain functional connectivity.…”